JERUSALEM, Thursday, July 13 — The Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah
surprised Israel with a bold daylight assault across the border on
Wednesday, leading to fighting in which two Israeli soldiers were captured
and at least eight killed, and elevating recent tensions into a serious
two-front battle.

Israel, already waging a military operation in the Gaza Strip to free a
soldier captured by Palestinian militants on June 25, immediately responded
by sending armored forces into southern Lebanon for the first time in six
years.

Early on Thursday morning, Israeli warplanes fired missiles at the runways
at Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut, shutting the airport and
potentially stranding thousands of visitors at the peak of tourist season.
Israeli warplanes also hit numerous locations in southern Lebanon, adding to
the civilian death toll. The Israeli military confirmed the strike, saying
that the airport was a target because Hezbollah receives weapons shipments
there.

The Israeli government also confirmed that Hezbollah fired several Katyusha
rockets into northern Israel, injuring three people.

The toll was the highest one for the Israeli soldiers in several years, and
combined with the deaths on Wednesday of at least 22 Palestinians, including
many civilians, in fighting in Gaza, it was the deadliest day in the
Arab-Israeli conflict since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip last year.
And the violence continued into the early morning hours, when an Israeli
airstrike heavily damaged the Palestinian Foreign Ministry building in Gaza.

Even though Israel has overwhelming military superiority in both southern
Lebanon and Gaza, the new fighting signaled the emergence of a conflict that
has blown past the limits of local confrontation into a regional crisis.
Some analysts suggested that the similarity between the Hezbollah raid and
the one in Gaza by fighters with the Islamic faction Hamas and its allies,
both intended to gain leverage through captured Israeli soldiers, pointed to
increasingly closer relations between the groups. [News analysis, Page A14.]

As with the Gaza conflict, Israel ruled out negotiations with the Lebanese
captors of the Israeli soldiers. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he held the
Lebanese government responsible for the assault by Hezbollah, the Shiite
Muslim group that participates in Lebanese politics but also continues to
battle Israel.

“I want to make clear that the event this morning is not a terror act, but
an act of a sovereign state that attacked Israel without reason,” Mr. Olmert
said. “The government of Lebanon, of which Hezbollah is a part, is trying to
shake the stability of the region.” Israel is demanding that all three
soldiers be returned and that militants stop firing rockets at Israelis from
Gaza in the south and Lebanon in the north. But both Hamas and Hezbollah are
holding out for an exchange for a large number of Palestinian and other Arab
prisoners held by Israel.

“The prisoners will not be returned except through one way — indirect
negotiations and a trade,” said the leader of Hezbollah, Sheik Hassan
Nasrallah, speaking to reporters in Beirut on Wednesday. He suggested the
possibility of a deal. “The capture of the two soldiers could provide a
solution to the Gaza crisis,” he said. The operation had been planned for
months, he said, though he added, “The timing, no doubt, provides support
for our brothers in Palestine.”

Hezbollah released a statement saying that the two soldiers had been
transferred to “a safe place,” but did not give any other details.

Two years ago, Hezbollah managed to push Israel to free more than 400
Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in exchange for an Israeli businessman
held in Lebanon and for the bodies of three Israeli soldiers killed in a
Hezbollah attack in 2000. Israel is currently holding close to 9,000
Palestinian prisoners, though the number of Lebanese prisoners is believed
to be much smaller.

The White House released a statement condemning the Hezbollah raid, calling
it an “unprovoked act of terrorism” and holding Syria and Iran responsible
because of their longstanding support for the group. The United Nations
representative to southern Lebanon, Gier Pedersen, also criticized the raid,
calling it “an act of very dangerous proportions.”

The fighting on the Lebanese border erupted around 9 a.m., when Hezbollah
attacked several Israeli towns with rocket fire, wounding several civilians,
the Israeli military said. But that attack was a diversion for the main
operation, several miles to the east, where Hezbollah militants fired
antitank missiles at two armored Humvees patrolling the Israeli side of the
border fence, the military said. Of the seven soldiers in the two jeeps,
three were killed, two wounded and two abducted, the military said.

Israel then responded with artillery fire, airstrikes and a naval
bombardment that focused on about 40 sites in southern Lebanon. Most were
believed to be Hezbollah strongholds, but roads and bridges were also hit in
an attempt to keep Hezbollah from moving the captured soldiers farther
north, according to the military. At least 2 Lebanese civilians were killed
and more than 10 wounded in southern Lebanon, Lebanese officials said.

Israel also sent ground forces into Lebanon, and a tank hit an explosive
planted in the road, killing all four soldiers inside, the Israeli military
said. Another soldier was killed while trying to rescue those in the tank.

The Israeli incursion was the first such operation in southern Lebanon since
Israel pulled its troops back into Israel in 2000, ending two decades of
occupation.

Political and military analysts in Egypt and Israel said the recent events
seemed to stem from a growing relationship between Hamas and Hezbollah.
While there is no direct evidence of coordinated attacks, several analysts
said they believed that the two kidnappings were part of a plan reflecting a
trend that began several years ago, with Hezbollah trying to teach Hamas its
methods. “What took place from Hezbollah today, in my opinion, is tied to
their relationship with Hamas,’’ said Dr. Wahid Abdel Meguid, Deputy
Director of the Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Egypt.
“Hezbollah developed a strong relationship with Hamas, the most manifest
form of this relationship is Hezbollah’s role in training the Hamas cadres.”

Hezbollah and Hamas are part of a complex four-way relationship with each
other and Iran and Syria. Iran helped to create, finance and train
Hezbollah. Hamas’s political leader, Khaled Meshal, lives and works in
Damascus. The expectation among political and foreign affairs analysts is
that Hamas and Hezbollah would never have taken such provocative actions
without at least the tacit approval of their sponsors in Tehran or Damascus.

Meanwhile, Gaza endured another bloody day. Hours before the Hezbollah
attack on Wednesday, Israeli troops moved in force into central Gaza for the
first time, expanding the operation intended to secure the release of the
captured soldier there, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, and stop rocket fire into Israel.
Israeli tanks, armored personnel carriers and armored bulldozers entered at
the Kissufim crossing on the eastern side of Gaza and cut off the southern
third of the territory from the rest of the strip.

The Israeli Air Force also dropped a bomb on a home in Gaza City at around 3
a.m., saying its targets were Hamas leaders. But the blast killed nine
members of the Salmiyeh family, according to Dr. Jumaa al-Saqqa, the
spokesman for Al Shifa Hospital, where the bodies were taken. There were
visiting Hamas leaders in the house at the time of the bombing, but they
escaped with only minor injuries, Palestinians said.

The owner of the house, Nabil Abu Salmiyeh, who was reported to be a Hamas
member, was killed along with his wife, Salwa, and seven of their children,
ages 7 to 18, Dr. Saqqa said. The Israeli military said the main target was
Muhammad Deif, the head of Hamas’s armed wing. Israel says Mr. Deif is
behind scores of attacks against Israeli civilians. The military, which has
tried to kill Mr. Deif at least four times in recent years, said he was
wounded. But Hamas officials refused to say whether Mr. Deif was at the
house at the time of the bombing, and insisted he was safe.

In two separate gun battles near the town of Deir al-Balah, Israeli soldiers
killed 10 Palestinian militants and wounded at least 7, Palestinian security
and medical officials said. At least 12 more Palestinians were killed in
other Gaza incidents, many of them in airstrikes around Khan Yunis and Deir
al-Balah.

Early on Thursday, a strike by Israeli aircraft heavily damaged the Foreign
Ministry building in Gaza. There were reports of injuries, though it was
unclear whether they included people inside the ministry, which is
controlled by Hamas, or in nearby buildings.

In Beirut, residents gave out sweets in celebration of the kidnapping, while
convoys of young men drove through the downtown district, waving Hezbollah’s
yellow flag.

Fouad Siniora, Lebanon’s prime minister, sought to distance the government
from the Hezbollah raid after an emergency cabinet meeting. He noted that
the Lebanese government was “not aware of and does not take responsibility
for, nor endorses what happened on the international border.”

Greg Myre reported from Jerusalem for this article, and Steven Erlanger from
Gaza City. Hassan M. Fattah contributed reporting from Beirut, and Michael
Slackman from Cairo.

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